I have a vinyasa yoga DVD, and lately I have been doing yoga at home a couple of evenings a week. It's a 25 min session. I don't do any warm up whatsoever, I just go straight into the stretches as instructed in the DVD, so effectively stretch cold. After the DVD has finished, I do a couple of side split stretches, and find I am able to go as deep (or even deeper) in my stretch as I can when I do my kicking wokouts followed by stretching. I have always heard that you must do a warm up (ie squats, light jog etc) before attempting any deep stretching, and to never stretch cold. Yet I have been doing the exact opposite to this by doing by yoga cold. Thoughts on this?
It's been a while since I've done any yoga, but the yoga I did would always start off gentle and get progressively deeper. In a sense, it incorporated it's own warm up in itself. I can't say whether the DVD you're following does that or not, but from what I know of the whole yoga attitude is that it's very likely it will. If you're really concerned, then just do your own warm up before you start the DVD. (My old yoga teachers would probably have a fit if they saw me writing this. I got told off for doing some impromptu rapid spinal twists in class once. The teacher claimed it would disturb the feeling of relaxation she was trying to build up in us all!)
Some how that doesn't surprise me fishy. As Cosmic mentioned just do the warm-up if you feel the need. I'd also recommend taking a few classes to fully understand what all the yoga terms mean. Personally I stretch cold for yoga and us it as my warm-up to strength training.
The stretching cold is for those people that like to go all out on the first stretch and push to the limit and they often tear muscle or they will snap muscles. You sound like you have a little bit of sense, the fact you are doing yoga. Yoga in all styles has built in to it concept, the going to the more difficult later in training. Like for instance the sun salutation it begins with a stretching the arms over the head to both leg straight leg stretch, than a lunge. It is contained in the idea of yoga not to win at it but to flow naturally and even in the pace, and not press to hard at any one thing let the body build the tendons. Which is done by the same idea of like how they make samurai swords which is to fold the metal than stretch it to make it stronger. See they have a folding stretch and than a lengthening stretch for the large muscle first than they will go slowly more and more difficult and smaller muscle as they progress. The way the stretches are setup in each of the practice yoga sets. It is done specifically to make the natural next time you stretch that muscle in the set you will hit that muscle at a different direction. Which is done to try and train the hole muscle all the way around, not just stretch the same muscle over and over at the same direction of stretching. So you are able to stretch slightly farther each time you do yoga because you are hitting the same muscle at different angles to help the muscle stay naturally more relaxed and build more of the tendons first. Than work from the tendon in to the muscle. It is done so naturally and gradually that you can not even feel it happening in yoga.
You will stretch more deeply after a stretching workout than after a kicking workout. If I run 5 miles and then try to stretch I'm tight, because I've been running; same with kicking drills. You're warm but you've been working the muscles hard and therefore contracting them. A warm up prior to stretching is a specific warm up, not kicking drills. Yoga similarly builds during the session. Primarily though, I think yoga works static flexibility, which is ok. But you really want to work dynamic flexibility. Here's an interesting link which you may have seen before, but has some good stuff so is worth repeating. This is another good resource. Mitch
You will not tear a muscle by stretching cold. This is a common misconception. A muscle tears because it is stretched and suddenly contracts. If you are doing simple relaxed stretches (i.e. moving to your comfortable limit and holding the position for a certain length of time), you will find it near impossible to tear the muscle(s). "Stretching" itself is a misnomer. When you perform relaxed stretches, you are not physically stretching the muscle to a greater length. Rather, you are merely waiting out the tension (or "overriding the myotatic reflex" if you want the posh phrase!) and picking up the slack. You can perform relaxed stretches any time of day without a warm-up, even when you are tired.
